From 1 to 4 February 2018, the annual International Conference on Artificial Life and Robotics (ICAROB 2018) was held in the Japanese city of Beppu (Oita Prefecture).
The event gives participants opportunities to exchange experiences and discuss the development of modern technologies in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence. Employees of the Laboratory of Intelligent Robotic Systems (LIRS) of the ITIS Higher Institute have been actively participating in the conference for the second year in a row. This year, scientific reports were presented by the head of the Department of Intelligent Robotics Evgeni Magid and junior researcher at LIRS Artur Sagitov. Regular participation in the conference provides opportunities for strengthening international cooperation in both research and development and education.
LIRS employees prepared nine research papers that will be published in the proceedings of the conference and indexed in the Scopus and Web of Science databases.
The opening ceremony of the conference took place on February 1. Co-chairman of the conference Professor Takao Ito from the University of Hiroshima (Japan) and members of the International Organizing Committee of the conference Professor Evgeni Magid and Professor Hsia Kuo-Hsien from the Far Eastern University (Taiwan) addressed the participants with a welcoming speech.
On February 2, Professor Evgeni Magid presented the scientific research obtained using the Servosila Engineer mobile platform Path planning for Indoor Partially Unknown Environment Exploration and Mapping; the authors of the article are LIRS employees Aufar Zakiev, Roman Lavrenov, Evgeni Magid. He also presented the results of work on route planning using the Voronoi graph Smart Spline-Based Robot Navigation on Several Homotopies: Guaranteed Avoidance of Potential Function Local Minima; the author of the article is LIRS employee Roman Lavrenov. LIRS Junior Researcher Artur Sagitov made a presentation on experimental work on comparing fiducial marks Virtual Experimental Stand for Automated Fiducial Marker Comparison in Gazebo Environment; the authors of the article are LIRS employees Ksenia Shabalina, Artur Sagitov and Professor Yevgeny Magid, Professor of Shanghai Jao Tong University (China) Hongbing Li and Professor of the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez (Mexico) Edgar A. Martinez-Garcia.
On February 3, Professor Evgeni Magid presented the scientific results of the integration of the ROS robotic operating system packages developed in LIRS into the control system of the Servosila Engineer mobile platform in two research paper: Implementation of ROS package for simultaneous video streaming from several different cameras; authors are Ramil Safin and Roman Lavrenov, and "Russian mobile robot Servosila Engineer: designing an optimal integration of an extra laser range finder for SLAM purposes"; the authors are LIRS employees and students Nail Alishev, Roman Lavrenov and Yuri Gerasimov.
Evgeni Magid also presented an article with the results of pedagogical work in higher education in the field of robotics: “Establishing Effective Teaching for Robotics: a comparison study of Bachelor students participated in Introduction to Robotics course. The results of these studies will help to consider the opinions of students on issues of the organization of the educational process and increase the efficiency of training in the robotics disciplines of bachelor's and master's degrees of the international level "Intelligent Robotics", which was launched in September 2017 at the Higher Institute of ITIS KFU. The authors of the article are LIRS employees Tatyana Tsoi, Leysan Sabirova and Evgeni Magid, and Mikhail Abramsky, an employee of the Smart Education Lab.
Additionally, Evgeny Magid presented a report on the development of robotic systems based on memristor neurons: “Memristive neuron integration in digital robotic embodiment”. The authors of the article are Maksim Talanov, Evgenii Zykov, Yuri Gerasimov, Professor of the ITIS Alexander Elizarov, Evgeni Magid, and Leading Researcher at OpenLab "Electronic Synapse" of the Institute of Materials for Electronics and Magnetism of the Italian Council for Science, Professor Victor Erokhin.
LIRS Junior Researcher Artur Sagitov made reports on agricultural robotics: “Development of a heterogeneous aerial swarm control framework for forest management”, authors of the article are employees and stuents Yuri Gerasimov, Artur Sagitov, Evgeni Magid. He also presented an article on medical robotics: “Toward automated open wound suturing using haptic feedback: detecting wounds and planning the suture”. The authors of the article are Arthur Sagitov, Evgeny Magid and Professor of Shanghai University Jao Tong (China) Hongbing Li.
Professor Magid acted as a moderator of the scientific sections "Mobile Robotics" OS-7 and GS-9. He is also a member of the International Organizing Committee of the conference.